1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an entertaining device for teaching Christian principles by rote. More specifically, the invention relates to an electronic teaching toy for reproducing prestored biblical stories and verses.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many devices have been used over time for educating young children on various topics, ideologies, and theories. Many of these devices include a telephone handset, or other simulative hand held article for a child user to pretend to talk on the phone while learning. In addition, many of these devices have pre-recorded messages, songs, alphabets, numbers, etc. that the child listens to in order to learn. The prior art has many representative devices for telephone structures, learning devices, and entertaining devices.
Some examples are U.S. Pat. No. Des. 291,989 issued Sep. 22, 1987, to Roach, shows a praying hands telephone handset cradle. U.S. Pat. No. Des. 318,306 issued Jul. 16, 1991, to Cheung, shows an electronic toy having a telephone handset. U.S. Pat. No. Des. 321,186 issued Oct. 29, 1991, to Blinn et al., shows a telephone set in the form of a hand. U.S. Pat. No. Des. 387,056 issued Dec. 2, 1997, to Yoneyama, shows a business telephone set. U.S. Pat. No. Des. 392,321 issued Mar. 17, 1998, to Chan, shows a toy teaching device. U.S. Pat. No. Des. 397,338 issued Aug. 25, 1998, to Gray, shows a cellular telephone in the form of a hand. U.S. Pat. No. 3,964,179 issued Jun. 22, 1976, to Bennett, discloses a telephone teaching system that utilizes a functioning telephone to educate children in various areas. U.S. Pat. No. 4,445,196 issued Apr. 24, 1984, to Gonet, discloses an electronic hand held bible. U.S. Pat. No. 4,493,652 issued Jan. 15, 1985, to Mike, discloses an inspirational teaching apparatus having a display of an inspirational symbol and a printed message appearing while an audio track reads the message. U.S. Pat. No. 4,642,054 issued Feb. 10, 1987, to Wada, discloses a children's picture book having a telephone dial therein. U.S. Pat. No. 5,382,188 issued Jan. 17, 1995, to Tomellini, discloses an audio playback device having a telephone handset and a plurality of images. Upon selecting an image, the device plays an audio recording of the image as if speaking through the handset.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,433,610 issued Jul. 18, 1995, to Godfrey et al., discloses an educational device for accelerating learning in recognition, language acquisition, awareness, cause and effect, and association. U.S. Pat. No. 5,449,177 issued Sep. 12, 1995, to Naylor, discloses a biblical educational board game for teaching biblical knowledge in the context of three biblical characteristics of humankind, as presented in the Bible. U.S. Pat. No. 5,474,484 issued Dec. 12, 1995, to Lemelle, discloses a doll for teaching children how to dial the emergency number (typically `911`) by disposing a simulated telephone in the chest of the doll. The telephone also includes an audio tape for instructing the child as to what to do. U.S. Pat. No. 5,609,508 issued Mar. 11, 1997, to Wingate, discloses a toy telephone having audio and visual outputs. U.S. Pat. No. 5,803,748 issued Sep. 8, 1998, to Maddrell et al., discloses an electronic book having visual indicia on the leaves of the book. Upon pressing the indicia, an audible sound is produced related to the indicia. U.S. Pat. No. 5,829,985 issued Nov. 3, 1998, to Campanella, discloses a children's game device that allows a child to interactively participate with an electronic storybook by drawing characters and recording the child's voice. U.S. Pat. No. 5,924,869 issued Jul. 20, 1999, to Haas, discloses a devotional and learning device emulating a scroll. Individual frames of the scroll display scripture passages, prayers, quotations, etc.
None of the above inventions and patents, taken either singularly or in combination, is seen to describe the instant invention as claimed. Thus a Christian learning tool for developing Christian principles is desired.